Cafe Nevo (3 page)

Rami whispered in Hebrew to Caspi: “We can do it without him.”

“You fool,” snapped Caspi, “do you think he doesn't understand Hebrew? If you do it without him, you do it without me.”

Rami flushed. Caspi's little pumpkin tossed her head and said, “I know what you can have in it.”

All three men turned to her.

“Jokes,” she said proudly.

“Jokes?” they said together.

“Sure, jokes. What are you laughing for? I read that in America joke books sell better than anything. And how can any two people get to know each other better than by finding out what makes each other laugh?”

Khalil said stiffly,
“We
find little to laugh at these days.”

“Oh, come on,” the girl said. “I don't believe you don't have jokes. The Jews were a persecuted minority for thousands of years and it never stopped them laughing.”

“Have another cream puff, darling,” said Caspi.

 

Meanwhile Muny, in response to the daily tides that governed his humors, was once again growing rowdy. He peered around the café and focused on Pincas Gordon. “Well,” he cried, “if it isn't the old pirate himself, the king of the carpetbaggers, Pincas Lion-of-Judea Gordon in the plentiful flesh.”

Pincas, half rising, bowed.

“Dispossessed any widows lately? Bulldozed any orchards? Pulverized any orphanages?”

“We had a good week,” Pincas replied, patting his ample stomach. It was never safe to bait Muny. Roaring incoherently, the drunken poet launched himself in Pincas's direction. But Sternholz somehow got in the way. Pinching Muny's arm with amazingly strong fingers, he said, “Once a day is enough. Sit down, or get out.” Muny subsided.

Caspi had not failed to notice Pincas Gordon's overtures toward his wife, but what galled him even more was the new Mercedes parked at the curb. “Nice car, Gordon!” he called over.

“Brand-new,” Pincas boasted. “Right off the boat. Cost me a mint, I can tell you.”

“Good color, too. Fascist black.”

“What would you have ordered, Caspi? Pink?”

“I hope you're not implying that I'm gay?” Caspi said in a falsetto. Dory giggled loyally.

“Far be it from me to impugn your cocksmanship. I was referring to your politics.”

“You shared them once, or so you pretended.”

“But I grew up, Peter Pan.”

“You grew out.”

“Pretty feeble, Caspi. Is something cramping your style? Someone, maybe?” He waggled a chin in Vered's direction.

“You are,” Caspi growled, all the humor suddenly drained out of him. “You've been haunting this place long enough, dead man.” The malice in his voice killed all other conversations.

Pincas Gordon's voice quavered indignantly. “I judge my friends by who they are, not what they do, and I expect to be judged in the same way.”

Behind the bar, Sternholz snorted.

“You don't have any friends,” Caspi stated.

“No friends? I'll show you who has no friends! Waiter! Drinks for the house, on me.”

“Pathetic,” Caspi commented, and turning away, he resumed his conversation with Khalil. Sternholz prepared drinks for everyone, so he could hit Pincas for the bill, but as he expected, all his customers turned them down. All except one. Sitting so far back in the shadows that he had been overlooked by all save Sternholz and the blindly observant Sarita sat a well-dressed man in his late fifties, early sixties.

Pincas Gordon peered through the gloom to see who had accepted his drink. Then, recognizing the figure, he jumped up and hurried over.

“Minister Brenner, I didn't see you. I wouldn't have thought you'd sit here.”

“I've been coming to Nevo,” replied the Minister, who wore a knitted yarmulke on his bald pate, “since you were in diapers.”

“It's good of you to accept. These characters think they own the joint.”

“Don't let it go to your head,” the other said shortly.

He would have liked to ask why Pincas came to Nevo, where he was obviously unpopular, but he didn't want to encourage the man. He had accepted the drink on a regrettable impulse of pity for Pincas and dislike of Peter Caspi. The impulse had gone but the fat man showed no sign of following suit. Though Pincas did not quite dare to take a seat uninvited, he planted his back against the wall and settled in for a chat.

It was an unfortunate meeting for the Minister, who had good reason for wishing to avoid association with Pincas Gordon. He looked around for Sternholz, but the waiter was busy making change and didn't notice. As Pincas rambled on about Caspi, Minister Brenner grew increasingly annoyed. Sternholz oughtn't to allow it. In the old days—but before he could complete the thought, Sternholz was there.

“Back!” he ordered Pincas, waving an imaginary whip. “Back, I say!” Pincas balked, but the old man wouldn't have it “Get back to your seat! Do you think he comes here to get annoyed by you?”

Pincas winked at the Minister and said, “Why do we put up with him?” The Minister stared past him. “Far be it from me,” the fat man said unctuously, “to intrude where I'm not wanted.” He did not leave Nevo but returned to his own table.

Arik had run out a few minutes earlier, returning with a copy of the
International Herald Tribune
. He pored over the paper, circling help wanted ads with a red pen. Every so often he interrupted his labors to raise his head and stare blearily at Sarita, who was oblivious, still engaged with her drawing. When Sternholz's altercation with Pincas drew his attention to that dark corner, he recognized Brenner and jumped up.

“Hey, you!” he bawled. The Minister raised an eyebrow. Arik waved the newspaper. “See this? You know what I'm doing? I'm getting out of this madhouse for good, and you know whose fault that is? Yours, you bastard; you fired me!”

“I fired you?” the Minister said. “I don't know you from Adam.”

“You didn't fire Adam, you old fart; you fired me, Arik Eshel!”

“Arik Eshel? Are you Uri Eshel's son?”

Arik scowled. “I am.”

“The one who quit the army over Lebanon?”

“That's right.”

Brenner looked at him unsympathetically and declared, “You're a sad disappointment to that fine man.”

Arik, who had sloughed his drunkenness with remarkable ease, said, “I doubt my father confides in you. And I don't believe you were uninvolved in my firing. But that doesn't matter. It's not that I object to. All's fair in love and politics, but you shouldn't have closed the center.”

“I know nothing about it,” the Minister said, and turned his head away.

 

A burst of laughter rose from Caspi's table, followed by the writer's booming voice. “No, sir,” he said, addressing Khalil, “this is not Mrs. Caspi. This is my darling Dory. Mrs. Caspi is the little frump sitting over there, sulking on her own. Vered, come here!”

Vered didn't stir. Sternholz, bone tired, sat down at an unoccupied table and put his head in his hands.

“Verdele, love of my life, darling spouse, come over here. Someone wishes to meet you. No, don't move, Dory, my poppet. Vered, get your ass over here!”

Vered lit a cigarette and turned over a page of her paper. Khalil gave Caspi an angry look, then walked to Vered's table.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I foolishly thought that girl was his wife and complimented her on her work. An absurd mistake; I apologize for the embarrassment.”

“I'm not embarrassed,” Vered said.

“I wanted you to know that my friends read your column and respect your work.”

Vered removed her dark glasses and looked up at him. “I don't know you.”

“I am Khalil Mussara.”

She nodded and said, “Thank you.” The Arab stood uncertainly for a moment, then turned and walked out of Nevo.

Caspi watched him cross Dizengoff and get into a bright red BMW parked at the curb.

“I don't believe it,” he cried, pained to the heart. “I don't believe my fucking eyes. He doesn't own a BMW.”

“He does,” said Rami.

“Far fucking out,” breathed Dory.

“Where does that Arab come off,” Caspi asked feelingly, “owning a car like that?”

Dory and Rami exchanged identical, startled glances. Caspi didn't notice. He was staring after the car.

 

Little Sarita had done enough. The light was fading. She went to Steraholz and, standing timidly by his elbow, asked for her check.

“No charge,” he said.

“But I had three coffees.”

“It's taken care of.”

“By whom?”

The waiter shrugged.

“No, that's impossible. I must pay.”

“Look,” said Emmanuel Yehoshua Sternholz, getting painfully to his feet, “you sat there all afternoon. You drank your coffee quietly and drew your picture. You didn't do any harm, didn't cause any disruption, didn't start any fights, just sat there and brightened up this miserable place. So why should you pay me? I should pay you. Let's call it even.”

Sarita flushed and said with distress, “But if you do that, how can I come back? And I have to come back.”

“Next time,” Sternholz said, “if it makes you happy, you can pay.”

“Well,” she said, giving him her hand,
“Shabbat shalom.”

He looked down at the long white fingers, graced by a ring he remembered. Sternholz shook her hand gently.

“Shabbat shalom,”
he said.

 

At dawn, Sternholz sat in the armchair by his bedroom window, overlooking the sea. Beside him on a small glass-topped table were a bowl of fruit, a cup of coffee, and an uncapped whiskey bottle. The sea, mantled in royal blue, flecked with white, reflected the rising sun. In the gap between hotels Sternholz saw a narrow silver strand: the city that was built on dunes now had barely a handful of sand to spare its beaches. When he first came, the city at its northern tip was only three streets wide; beyond its eastern edge were sand dunes and orange orchards. The smell of the sea was strong throughout the city and it was a different smell then, wild and briny and sharp. When the wind shifted, the scent of orange blossoms filled the air. Now there was too much exhaust to smell the sea, and the orange groves were long gone. Sternholz had watched the city form and re-form, a seaside city swept by the tide of time. All his life Sternholz had lived in this place, for what came before this place was not life but prelude, a dark prehistory leading to his violent expulsion onto the Tel Aviv shore. He was young with the city and knew it as a time and place of healing grace and light.

Emmanuel Yehoshua Sternholz had had the rare unbiddable fortune of living in the right time and the right place: the
gift
of
timeliness. He had seen the city's decline into greatness, its people's into pettiness, but he regretted nothing. To mourn a city's aging was to curse the wrinkles on one's face: a repudiation of all that had passed, good and bad alike.

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

The calls on Ilana's tape were all from men—not surprising, in view of her vocation—and normally she would not have considered it or given it a thought. Today, however, she was disappointed. She had hoped, as she always did on her birthday, for a call from her mother. Though they had not met or spoken for fifteen years, Ilana knew that Katya had her address and number, because they corresponded by check.

Ilana could not blame her. What mother would rejoice at her only daughter's becoming a whore? Her own father had said it, last time they met, and though she rejected his tone of bitter disapprobation and the implied call to remorse, she did not dispute and never had disputed the definition. Just as extortion on a large enough scale is called manipulation, and gambling speculation, so successful prostitution is honored with finer names. But with the arrogance of great landowners who call themselves farmers, Ilana preferred the common term. She
was
a whore, though no one else would say it. She lived off men without benefit of civil or religious sanction; and if she lived well, that only made her a successful whore.

And she did live well. Her apartment in the King David Towers consisted of six beautifully furnished rooms, replete with Persian rugs, antique mahogany furniture, crystal and china service, and a sunken marble tub large enough for two. When she traveled abroad (as she did constantly, spending more time out of than in the country), she flew or sailed first class and stayed in the finest hotels. Her lovers were successive, never simultaneous, for she believed that any man who met her price deserved exclusivity. They had, in addition to Ilana, two things in common: they were all wealthy, and they were all Jewish.

Ilana was successful at her work. She was beautiful, and if her face was her fortune, it was a fortune so wisely invested as to withstand triple-digit inflation. Her beauty was not skin-deep; it resided in the bones of her face and a natural trick of coloring, legacy of a pair of mismatched parents. She had her Iraqi father's dark olive skin and her German mother's fair hair and gray eyes.